Borland said that many employers have focused on educating their workers about how 401(k) loans could potentially erode a considerable part of their savings.

Such education initiatives appear to be working, as other studies have also found that 401(k) loans are barely on the rise—if they’re even increasing at all. Fidelity, for example, found that 19.2 percent of workers had outstanding 401(k) loans at the end of June, down from 19.4 percent in June 2007 and 19.9 percent in 2006.

While these numbers could be trending downward because workers are paying off their 401(k) loans, Fidelity actually found that the number of workers now initiating loans from their 401(k) plans has declined as well: 2.8 percent of workers took 401(k) loans in the second quarter, compared with 3.1 percent of participants who did so during the same period last year.